Tag Archives: requiem,

Our fifteen year old Labrador Retriever Sadie passed away at New Year’s. We had had her with us since she was nine months old. Some of Sadie’s happiest years were spent in Vermont where she greatly enjoyed her neighbors, HannahandJosh (yes, it was always said as one word), especially since Sadie has never known anyone else with hair colour the same as hers since the days of Josh.

Sadie was nanny dog to Sparky, Nemo and then Rico plus several chickens and a cat or two that did not discriminate. She was a very loving, long-suffering, hard-headed dog the colour of a pumpkin.

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Well, it is my sad duty to report that Ruby, an eight-year-old black Japanese Bantam, has joined Pearl in the Great Chicken Beyond. Ruby seemed to have a sudden onset of chicken blahs and succumbed rapidly, clutching firmly to her perch until the end. In the aftermath of her roommate, Pearl’s, recent passing in March, Ruby had rallied and continued on in good spirits. She enjoyed being carried around and watching morning news programming on my mother’s lap. A private funeral was held at the family home.

We are now officially chicken-less and there are no plans to fill the void left by Ruby and Pearl. Let the purchase of store-bought organic eggs commence.

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Sigh. Big Benny, one of our Maine Coon Cats and the larger bro to Phoofie, has gone on. Very sad. We almost didn’t adopt him at the humane shelter, because we had our quota of cats already and had decided we would just take home the Phoof. Until I was writing the cheque and happened to turn back toward the cage and saw him hanging from the sides like a jumping jack mewing at us as if to say, “Wait, take me, too!!!”

Although they had virtually the same colouring, Benny was the complete opposite of Phoofie in almost every other respect except chattiness and willing to join into a conversation. Whereas Phoofie is fastidious about his personal hygiene, Benny couldn’t give a hoot and sported dirt spots, clumpy fur and the general impression of Pigpen from Charlie Brown. Whereas Phoofie is always polite when he interrupts, Benny always barged into a room announcing his current demand with a voice that could best be described as the feline version of Ralph Cramdon. He was a total mess, but we loved him anyway, and will miss him very much.

Benny – 11/17/2005 – 5/22/2012

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Well, we buried Mikey in the garden this afternoon. He was one of the local feral kittens we had taken in a few years ago and was always skinny and not big on being petted. Kind of like Boo Boo Scissorhands, one of two feral kittens who arrived within a month of each other two summers ago. Boo Boo has the absolutely worst breath EV-ER. It’s no wonder his mama abandoned him. Mikey wasn’t keen on being petted and we rarely found him not in hiding to actually take a picture, but I looked for some pictures of Mikey to tell his story and here they are.

Mikey in 2008 wearing a stylish pink collar with bell

Mikey meeting Baby Sparky and deciding we had gotten the puppy just for him, 6/15/08

The start of a beautiful friendship - 6/15/08

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January 4, 2011 – Emily, our very large Great Pyrenees, died and we buried her out in the back yard near the garden. Thank heavens for our neighbor with the backhoe who came and dug out the clay for us. I’ll have to do a requiem page for Em now that we have a computer and are online again.

Emily with two-month-old Sparky 7-19-08

Emily, 5/1/03 – 1/4/11.

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How awesome is this? While going around thinning out plants in the flower garden I saw this the other day: an Easter lily is growing up out of Shermie’s grave. Awwwwwwww…….. The significance of that is that the lily bulb was not planted there. In fact, the only lily bulbs we had were planted in the front yard four years ago and the pathetic little stubby lilies that came up the first year thereafter did not come up since because the soil is bad and we figured they died or the moles ate them since we’ve never seen one since. So how this particular bulb made its way 75 feet and past two fences over to Shermie’s resting place – literally growing out from under his tombstone – is amazing to us.

Of course, Shermie always did love being out in the garden at each house we’ve had. Miss that ole Shermie-doodle……… RIP Shermoo.